National Literature as a Window on Belonging

Speaker:

Peggy Levitt - Wellesley College and Harvard University

Chair:

Paolo Boccagni - Università degli Studi di Trento

In this paper, I explore how “national literature” is used to create, reinvent, and reposition the nation vis á vis the globe. Using the cases of Lebanon, Argentina, and South Korea, I explore how these different kinds of nations produce different kinds of national literatures, who is included as a national writer, and what kinds of work national literature is expected to do. I examine the conditions under which national literature enables countries to cope with immigration and to scale shift, or claim a more prominent position, in the global cultural hierarchy

The seminar takes place within the framework of the HOMInG project - The Home-Migration Nexus - homing.soc.unitn.it